2022 COMMONWEALTH GAMES
- Friday, July 29 – Wednesday, August 3, 2022
- Birmingham, England
- Sandwell Aquatic Center
- Start Times
- Prelims: 10:30 am local / 5:30 am ET
- Finals: 7:00 pm local / 2:00 pm ET
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Event Schedule
- Entry List (PDF)
- Live Results
- Day 4 Finals Heat Sheet
- Day 4 Finals Live Recap
- 4×200 Freestyle Relay Lineups
Full Results
Australia defended their 2018 Commonwealth Games title in the men’s 4×200 relay today by cracking their own Commonwealth Games record with a time of 7:04.96.
MEN’S 4X200 FREESTYLE RELAY – FINAL
- Australia, 7:04.96
- England, 7:07.50
- Scotland, 7:09.33
- Wales, 7:10.64
- Canada, 7:12.68
- South Africa, 7:13.76
- Isle of Man, 7:43.70
- Gibraltar, 8:08.33
Their team of Elijah Winnington, Flynn Southam, Zac Incerti and Mack Horton touched the wall first in Birmingham with a 1.5 second lead over the field. The Australians were untouchable – they posted the fastest splits in the entire race on the first three legs. Winnington led off the relay in 1:46.36, handing it off to 16-year-old Southam and Incerti who split identical 1:46.08’s.
Horton brought them home in 1:46.44, the third-fastest split behind England’s Tom Dean (1:45.15) and Scotland’s Duncan Scott (1:44.48). Dean and Scott were the only swimmers to beat the Aussies on any split.
Australia set the previous Commonwealth Games record by winning this event in 2018 with a time of 7:05.97. The podium was identical that year with England and Scotland following the Aussies. Veterans Winnington and Horton are the only 2018 swimmers on this year’s relay. Horton anchored the relay during both the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games and today he crushed his 2018 anchor split by about half a second.
Split Comparison: Australia 2022 vs 2018 Commonwealth Games
| Australia 2022 | Australia 2018 | |
| 200m | 1:46.36 (Winnington) | 1:46.62 (Graham) |
| 400m | 1:46.08 (Southam) | 1:46.47 (Chalmers) |
| 600m | 1:46.08 (Incerti) | 1:45.97 (Winnington) |
| 800m | 1:46.44 (Horton) | 1:46.93 (Horton) |
| Final Time | 7:04.96 | 7:05.97 |
By the way, what happened to Clyde Lewis?
He swapped coaches & never made teams again.
So nothing out of ordinary. Not everybody is Katinka or Milak or Kaylee Mckeown.
For average athletes, not just in swimming, this is the biggest problem they can do, to change coach every year.
Personally I know a triple jumper who participated in Athens. Changed coach, never made the team again at the olympics. And he is hungarian.
Still swimming with the swimming Australia squad based at GCAC.
Swam a 1.45 low at GC SCM titles.
Was actually a good swim.
Really can’t fault the Aussies – All solid, nobody spectacular but that’s often the key to relays. The Australian men have really stepped up for team and country in relays this week, great ambassadors for Australian swimming. They will need to step it up again to contend with the US and a reunited GBR team in 2023 imo, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
From a GBR perspective, surprisingly I found tonight quite encouraging. Nice to see Matt Richards getting back towards his best after changes in his coaching set up – The ingredients are once again bubbling away nicely for 2023.
This is a far better summation of the relay than whose who say Australia only won because others were diluted. They did not swim against diluted teams!!!
However in 2023 they would need to step up big time to challenge Team GB & the US, simple & fact. The GB team that competes in the worlds has 2 of the best 200 free swimmers in the world.
Like wise with the 4 x 100 med, it will be close here in the CWG, however, if Peaty fit & in form as Commonwombat said, the GB team would be in another post code.
Agree. They would’ve beaten a “GBR” quartet (remove slowest ENG & sub in Scott). This was solid, unspectacular but correspondingly there were no disasters and that was what was required to win this one.
Largely agree with the general read of the greater international picture with this relay. They remain legitimate “players” in the medal mix but there are more such players than there are medals and at this point, they realistically lack any “gamechangers”.
Swap out Litchfield and Whittle for Scott (SCO) and Richards (WAL) and the GBR quartet from Tokyo would’ve finished last night around 7.03 flat.
For Australia to be competitive for gold in this event, we basically need all four likely legs to not only get back to their best, but also improve further.
Neill split a 1:44.74 in Tokyo. Zac’s flat PB is a 1:45.80 so he should be capable of a 1:45.30 without any improvement. Southam’s split of 1:46.08 is just slightly better than you would expect from his flat PB of 1:46.80. Assuming Kyle has left the 200 behind him, Graham has a PB of 1:45.22 from last year.
So best case scenario with current players we have a 7:01.34, which is about a second off USA’s World Champs gold and nowhere near GB in Tokyo.
Southam seems most likely to… Read more »
The 200 free has starting moving on again after years of stagnation and Australia is being left behind. Our main hopes of developing a couple of 1:44 freestylers are Neill and Southam out of the current group and Neill probably can’t do it without turning his back on the 800 (this stupidly clashes with the relay anyway) and 1500.
the silver lining for GBR is that theyre getting at least 12 swimmers getting valuable relay experience (England, Scotland, Wales) which would serve them well into the future and good for British depth…
Would it have won bronze at Worlds though?
#CouldofGames
So surprised that Scotland got bronze. Milne was 1:46 swimmer way back when, but has been 1:50+ for a long time. He came up with a 1:49.3 which is good for him. Evan Jones who I’ve never heard of and Szaranek both somehow swam 1:47’s which I would never have expected. And Scott with an awesome 1:44.4 anchor. Thought they’d be a long way behind by the time he got in thee pool.
Really thought Wales would get the bronze. Richards, Jarvis, Kieran Bird (swam 400 at the Olympics) and I thought they’d use Dan Jervis as well as he’s a good 400 swimmer, but for some reason they went for Dan Jones.
Evan Jones is a good junior – Primarily an IMer but he swam the fly leg for GBR at Euro Juniors when we won the 4×1 medley and made the 200fr final. Scottish lads all stepped it up massively, gutted for Wales though.
The Scots really performed, and deservedly won the bronze. England And Wales probably finished in lower positions than they would have wished.